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The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote speaks to the potential and anticipation of creativity waiting to be expressed.

In this quote, Nabokov captures the essence of the creative process, emphasizing that even when a blank page appears empty, it is filled with unexpressed ideas and emotions yearning to be articulated. This reflects the miraculous nature of writing and the transformative power of bringing thoughts and feelings into the visible world through words.

Themes

CreativityExpressionWritingImaginationPotential

In practice

Example use cases

In a writing workshop, to inspire participants to explore their creativity.

More from Vladimir Nabokov

My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
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A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
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...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.
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I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
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